Late Nights and Early Mornings
by DoubleSpaced
Summary: Annabeth Chase's first few days at college have not started well, plagued by tardiness and many trips to the campus cafe. A tale of eccentric roommates, an over-bearing coach, the boy across the hall, and the girl next door.


**AN: This is a test if I can still write. It's been a long time. I'm sorry about my last story if anyone read it, I had family issues and I just couldnt finish it. I'll try to finish this but it will be a struggle.**

**PS. I don't own this.**

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Annabeth trudged through the overpopulated sidewalks trying to make her way to Adams Hall and her dorm room. She knew Thalia, Piper, and Reyna got here late last night and were unpacking already. However, it seemed that the entire student populace of Olympia University decided to congregate on the green and completely block her way. It took around twenty minutes for Annabeth to extricate herself form the crowd and enter the building.

"Name?" Annabeth turned around to see an unamused desk attendant alternating between staring at a stack of papers and the ancient computer cluttering her minuscule work area, "Hey, I don't have all day. What's your name, kid?"

"Chase, Annabeth Chase," she said quickly.

"Room 247. Building 2 aka. Addams Hall, fourth floor, dorm 7. Your roommate is Thalia Grace. Got it?"

"Yes, Ma'am. Thank you, Ma'am." Annabeth hastily picked up her bags and pulled her luggage cart unto the nearest elevator. _At least they have decent elevator music. _The fourth floor was chaotic; there was a cluster of giggling girls grouped around a brightly colored pop-culture magazine, a few boys passing around a football and directing insults at each other. One boy must have said a good one because most of the group was laughing heartily except one, who promptly threw the football at the perpetrator. The victim was a boy, close to Annabeth's age, with light blonde hair trimmed in a military style haircut; he had bright blue eyes that closely resembled her best friend, Thalia's eyes, and a small scar on his upper lip. Annabeth then recognized him as Thalia's twin brother, Jason, the quarterback for the Olympia University Demigods. Jason looked up with a small smile and immediately spotted Annabeth amidst the bedlam. "Annabeth! Annabeth, hey. You haven't changed at all."

"Hey Jason. I barely recognized you but I guess not seeing someone in four years can do that. How was Roman Academy?" Jason grimaced at the name of the school. Thalia and Jason's father decided to send Jason to an elite boarding school in California for high school instead of Halfblood High with Annabeth and Thalia; the school had a very military-like teaching technique.

"Well anyways, these are my friends. The Asian recluse in the corner is Frank; the twitchy Hispanic playing with the lighter is Leo, ignore any flirting from him; Death Breath over there is my cousin, Nico, our resident goth; and that one over there with his back towards us is my other cousin, Percy. His head is full of kelp so overlook his stupidity. Frank and Leo were my roommates at Roman, Percy and Nico transferred there last year," Jason explained.

"Oh very funny sparky," the boy named Percy said, turning around. He was wearing a simple gray T-shirt and extremely tattered jeans; his hair seemed unable to choose a direction and hung just above his sea green eyes. Percy reached for a leather jacket and a worn backpack, only to trip over the small coffee table and fall. "Well, on that note, I'm going up to my room. Nice to meet you, Annabeth."

"You too, but I should probably go too. I need to unpack all this stuff. See you later Jason."

"What floor are you on? I'll help at least push this thing there; you are already carrying a lot," Percy offered gesturing to the rickety luggage cart and the three bags hanging from Annabeth's shoulders; He flashed a brilliant smile and Annabeth realized there was no use arguing.

"Fourth floor, dorm 7," Percy grabbed the cart and ran down the hall, leaving a flustered but giggling Annabeth to catch up. "But be warned, I'm rooming with Jason's sister, Thalia; the room is probably already a mess and I wouldn't be surprised if she has gotten a noise complaint by now," Annabeth said when she finally caught up and Percy stopped running.

"Oh, Pinecone Face. That's why the hallway was so loud last night. I'm in dorm 8, across the hall. Here we are, I'll carry your boxes in for you." He went to grab a box before Annabeth could say anything. "What are in these boxes, Annabeth?! Bricks?!"

"Books, but I only brought my favorites. It was hard to choose which ones to bring." Truthfully, Annabeth spent more time packing her books than she did her clothes. She opened the door to her new home for the next 4 years and was met with exactly what she expected, except Thalia didn't seem to be in the room because there was no music playing. The half the room had clothes thrown everywhere and posters covering the walls. One bed had a black and blue comforter thrown haphazardly across it, only two of the pillows managed to stay on the bed. There was strip of blue painters tape running the length of the room, the mess clearly contained to one side of it; a piece of paper was on the floor on the barren side of the tape. In Thalia's messy scrawl, it said:

_ANNIE! I'm with Beauty Queen and Rey getting some decent food (we found a Chinese place and a pizzeria like 10 minutes away. Chinese this time). We'll bring you your usual. See you when we get back!_

_THALIA_

_PS. You better not be reading a book when we get back!_

_PPS. Do you like my tape job!_

Annabeth smiled at her best friend's antics, then remembered Percy standing awkwardly in the doorway holding two boxes. "You can just put that down right here. Thank you for the help, but I got it from here. My roommate and my friends will be back really soon and it will be hectic; you should escape while you can."

"I'm okay. I live across the hall; I can escape when all the boxes are at least in your room." He set down the first two boxes and went to grab more. "Holy crap, how much do you read?" Percy was carrying the biggest box that contained her encyclopedias and the entire Harry Potter series.

"A lot. Reading strengthens th-"

"ANNIE! ARE YOU HERE? WE GOT YOU FOOD!" Thalia swept into the room ignoring Percy, throwing a brown paper bag covered in grease stains at Annabeth and then pulling her into a crushing hug, the bag of food still between them.

"Thalia, as much as I love you, lo mein is seeping through the bag and onto my clothes. And we saw each other like a week ago, calm down." She let go and Annabeth took in her appearance. She was wearing her trademark black combat boots and dark gray jeans; she had on a loose black tank top with a white skull printed on it. Her usual hoodie was tied around her waist and a silver cuff shown on her wrist with the word _AEGIS _engraved on it. Her jet black, pixie hair cut was accented with a blue stripe in her bangs that matched her electric blue eyes. She was grinning goofily, looking down at Annabeth's shirt. Sure enough, there was a huge stain right in the middle of her old camp T-shirt. She turned to Percy, who was watching the whole exchange quietly. "Thank you for your help but I need to kill my roommate now. I'll see you around."

"You're welcome. Hopefully we'll have a class together but I think your classes will be a lot harder than mine judging by the books," Percy said smiling before he waved goodbye and opened the door to his dorm.

"Who was that, Annie?" Thalia asked smirking. Annabeth just shook her head laughing and went to grab the last of the boxes and begin the unpacking process.

"That was your cousin, Jason introduced me to his friends when I got here. I also met Nico, the one you call Death Breath."

"Wait that was Percy! I haven't seen him since we were like 6! Holy crap, he isn't scrawny and gangly anymore. I haven't seen him since the tree incident."

"Which one? The one where you climbed too high and were too scared to get down or when you ran head first into a tree so hard there was an imprint on the tree?"

"Haha. Very funny," Thalia said sticking her tongue out at Annabeth and then began to help unpack the multitude of books. "I am slightly impressed; you didn't bring as many books as I thought you would."

"Where are Piper and Reyna?" Annabeth questioned when they finished and she was eating her lo mein on her perfectly made bed.

"Piper is putting her leftovers in their minifridge and Rey said something about sports meeting. She told me to remind you of something but I forgot what it was, oh well." Thalia said gracelessly plopping on her bed. Annabeth jumped out of bed with a loud _SHIT!_ She quickly grabbed her leather shoulder bag and ran out of the room and towards the sports complex for the first lacrosse meeting of the year.

She managed to slip into the room just as the meeting began. Out of breath and frazzled, she hurriedly took a seat next to Reyna as the coach began to speak of the expectations of the athletes.

"You're late, Chase," Reyna said stoically, without looking away from the coach.

"Well, you left Thalia to remind me, Arellano."

"True. I'll take credit for it this time," Reyna cast her a sideways glance. The coach cleared her throat and glared pointedly at the duo; Annabeth took that as her cue to stop talking and pay attention. College has only just begun.


End file.
